Then again, it does get 61 miles per gallon -- and when your daily commute, from Rancho Cucamonga to Irvine, is 100 miles round trip, that's huge

"There's nothing like driving a big, black 440 with a four-speed. But . . . this Honda is the best car I've ever owned," Tarman says. "I would cry if anything happened to it."

Tarman's love affair with a slow, undersized Civic shows the tremendous effect soaring gas prices have had on the way everyone, even hot-rodders, thinks about driving. And the fact that he turned to a creaky old 1992 model serves as a stark reminder that it's nearly impossible to buy a new car today that gets the kind of mileage many automobiles got 15 or 20 years ago, despite the industry's insistence that it's focusing on efficiency again.